Caro Llewellyn (born 1965) is an Australian business executive, artistic director, festival manager and nonfiction writer. As of 2020, she is chief executive officer of the

Wheeler Centre The Wheeler Centre, originally Centre of Books, Writing and Ideas, is a literary and publishing centre founded as part of Melbourne's bid to be a Unesco Creative City of Literature, which designation it earned in 2008. It is named after its pat ...

in Melbourne.

Career

Llewellyn is the daughter of Richard Llewellyn and poet Kate Llewellyn. She grew up in Adelaide. Early in her career Llewellyn had a job booking bands for venues. She entered the literary world and became product manager for

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

. From 2002 to 2006 Llewellyn was director of the

Sydney Writers' Festival The Sydney Writers' Festival is an annual literary festival held in Sydney, with the inaugural festival taking place in 1997. The 2020 event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. The festival's interim artistic director since ...

. In 2006 she moved to New York where she was employed by

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...

to manage the PEN World Voices Festival from 2007. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2009 and found she was no longer able to read. At this time she had been appointed the inaugural director of what later became the Wheeler Centre but resigned before she began in the role. After about three years she discovered that her sight had improved and she was able to read novels again. For

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, she served as artistic director of the Paris-based Festival des Écrivains du Monde from 2012 to 2015. During this period, from 2013 to 2015, she ran the New Literature from Europe Festival in New York. Back in Australia in 2017, Llewellyn was appointed Director of Experience and Engagement at

Museums Victoria Museums Victoria is an organisation which operates three major state-owned museums in Melbourne, Victoria: the Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks Museum. It also manages the Royal Exhibition Building and a storage faci ...

. Her 2019 memoir, ''Diving into glass'', was shortlisted for the 2020 Stella Prize. In 2020 Llewellyn was appointed chief executive officer of the Wheeler Centre. She will vacate the role in July 2023.

Works

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Llewellyn, Caro Living people Australian non-fiction writers Festival directors Writers from Adelaide Businesspeople from Adelaide 1965 births